Moon Behind Clouds
by Ammaranthe
Summary: Lord Sesshomaru and Lady Kikyo find themselves on the same road, in pursuit of the same mysterious demon. They could work together, but neither the proud youkai nor the tragic priestess is known for their willingness to compromise...
1. Chapter 1

_**Moon Behind Clouds**_

_**(an Inuyasha fan fiction story by Ammaranth *b_ed* )**_

_**(Author's Note: I do not own Inuyasha, or any of its characters. That honor goes to the much esteemed Lady Rumiko Takahashi, and the respective studios, publishers, distributors, etc, as the case may be. It's a great series, so I strongly encourage you to read the manga, watch the videos, buy the figures, calenders, keychains, plushies, and any other licensed swag you can get your hands on. But as for me, I'm not making a penny off of this. I do it all for the joy of writing. And the mikos . . . the angsty, undead mikos ;) **_

_Chapter 1_

"Demon! Tell me your name…"

The priestess held an arrow in her bow, bent to full draw.

"Who I am, and what my name is, are none of your concern."

"Suppose that I MAKE them my concern? I would know the name of the one I am about to kill!"

The ghostly figure in white sighed, as if this sort of thing were an ordinary, everyday sort of inconvenience.

"You must be the priestess Kikyo…"

* * * * * * * *

"Where are you going, Lord Sesshomaru?"

"Nowhere", Sesshomaru said, in that tone of voice that Rin liked so much. Sesshomaru did not smile very often. It wasn't the sort of thing that he would not do. But he did get this certain sound to his voice at times, that almost sounded like smiling, if smiling had a sound. The last time he had gone "nowhere", he had come back with a bundle of "nothing." "Nothing" turned out to be a beautiful orange and white kimono for Rin. It was the nicest thing she had ever been given.

"Hurry back!", Rin said. "Master Jaken and I will be all alone without you."

"You and Jaken will have to fend for yourselves for a while", Sesshomaru said, adjusting his two swords in his sash.

"Please, Lord Sesshomaru, take me with you! Do not leave me here with this silly human girl!"

"Jaken", Sesshomaru said, as if he had not heard his request, "take care of things while I am away."

"Yes, m'lord, of course."

With that, he turned, and was gone.

Sesshomaru was a youkai. You could tell this by his flowing white hair. His face was the face of a young man, but his hair was as white as snow, and his pale skin glowed like the light of the moon -- like the crescent moon shaped birthmark he had on his forehead. Now youkai is often translated as "demon", though "goblin" or "elf" would also do. They are one of those classes of faerie tale creatures which, sadly, no longer seem to be so common in the world these days. His father had been a great dog-lord, a Tai-youkai. He was much respected, and upon his death, he had left Sesshomaru the Tenseiga, one of two great swords forged from his father's fang. The other sword, the Tetsuaiga, he had left to Inuyasha, Sesshomaru's half brother. But it was the Tenseiga which lay at the heart of this day's journey.

"Why did father leave me such a wretched, useless sword?", he wondered, drawing it out from it's sheath. As he held the sword in his hand, a faint blue mist descended on the forest around him. It was the appearance of the netherworld.

The Tenseiga had been forged to work in that world, not in our own. With one stroke, it could kill 100 denizens of the underworld, and bring 100 people back to life. But unlike the mighty Tetsuaiga, which could kill 100 youkai (or humans) at once, the Tenseiga could only cut beings from that world, and not from this.

Sesshomaru surveyed this other world around him, a faint haze superimposed upon our own, always there, but seldom visible. At the moment , it did not appear that any members of the netherworld were nearby. But he kept the sword drawn all the same.

"If Inuyasha can work with the Tetsuaiga, and build its power, then perhaps I can do the same with the Tenseiga, until it gains some more useful ability", he thought to himself. He was so busy thinking that at first he did not notice the ghostly figure moving among the trees, coming down the path that lay on the other side of the juncture before him. When he did notice, he was rather surprised to see that the figure was dressed as a priestess, with a white kimono and red hakama pants. She wore no shoes.

"Why would a priestess be all the way out here?", he murmured to himself.

Even more surprising was that a blue mist seemed to hang around her, and trail along after her, as though she were somehow connected with the netherworld that the Tenseiga let him see.

"Demon!", she called out with a very unladylike snarl, "Tell me, what is your name?" Sesshomaru stopped in the middle of the path, still holding the Tenseiga. His garments fluttered in an almost imperceptible breeze, which might have been blowing in this world. Or it might have been in the next.

"Who I am, and what my name is, are none of your concern."

"Suppose that I MAKE them my concern? I would know the name of the one I am about to kill!"

Sesshomaru looked at her hand as it held the bow, his gaze traveling along her outstretched arm, along the billowed sleeve of her kimono, up to her face, which looked as steely as the tip of any arrow. It was as if she could kill a man, or a youkai, with just her eyes, and the flight of the arrow was only to give a path for her deadly gaze to follow. Though he couldn't be sure, when their eyes met, there seemed to be a pulse in the Tenseiga.

"You must be the priestess Kikyo."

"How is it that you know my name when I do not know yours?"

Sesshomaru smiled. It was a deadly smile.

"You're Inuyasha's woman . . ."

Kikyo's eyes flared. The hand that held back the arrow quivered.

"Oh well", he went on. "It's not as if it's a surprise. Inuyasha's mother was a human. It only makes sense that he would keep to his own kind. I don't know which I should hold against my father more, that he left me this useless sword, or that he cursed me with an even more useless brother."

It took a moment for his words to register, first in her mind, then across her face. Her anger became a look of perplexity.

"The Lord Sesshomaru . . . I've heard of you."

"Lady Kikyo."

Kikyo relaxed the pressure of her bow, then took the arrow from the string, and placed it back in her quiver.

"I am not . . . 'Inuyasha's woman' ", she said, easing her back against a tree.

"I see", Sesshomaru said slowly. "So that's how it is . . ."

For a moment, the Lady Kikyo did not say or do anything. She just stood there, leaning, looking very little like the fiercesome demon hunter who had been about to slay a youkai only moments before. She looked tired, but her weariness did not seem to be from holding back her bow.

"Lord Sesshomaru," she said, when she was able to speak again. "If I may enquire, what brings you to this place?"

Sesshomaru chuckled to himself at being so politely addressed by someone who had expressed her intent to kill him only a few moments earlier.

"This sword will not cut", he said, and he returned the Tenseiga to its sheath. The blue mist that hung all around them, and trailed from Lady Kikyo's hair, disappeared. Kikyo waited a polite amount of time, but no other information was forthcoming. That was how Sesshomaru explained things -- without explaining anything at all.

"And what brings a priestess so far from her village?"

Kikyo frowned.

"Two days ago, a messenger came to my village. He was from Yamamura, over the other side of the mountains, and he told terrible tales of a demon that had suddenly appeared and begun ravaging the countryside. None of the warriors or holy men were able to do anything against it, so I am traveling there now, to slay it myself."

"You will not."

"Do you intend to try to stop me?"

Kikyo put her hand to her quiver, and took hold of one of her arrows.

"You will not be able to slay the demon."

"And why is _that_?" she asked, letting go of the feathered shaft, and instead putting her hand on the side of her hip (which may have been an even more threatening gesture.) "Are you implying I am not _capable_ of killing this demon? I'll remind you, I pinned your brother to a tree. I could have killed _him_, if I had wanted to."

"Incapacitating my useless brother proves nothing. And you will not be able to slay this demon because I am going to slay it myself."

"Hmph!" she chuckled. "With a sword that does not cut?"

Sesshomaru smiled his deadly smile. Kikyo pushed off from the tree and adjusted the knot that held back her hair. Then she took her bow in her hand, and started off down the path. Sesshomaru waited for a moment, then started walking, going the same way. He had hardly gone more than a couple of steps when the priestess whirled to face him, making her hair dance along her shoulders.

"Do NOT follow me . . ."

"I was following the road."

Kikyo scowled, then started walking again. Her legs were much shorter than his. But Sesshomaru was not one to hurry. Somehow, they found themselves walking next to each other, on opposite sides of the path.

"I don't trust you to walk behind me", Kikyo said, "but if I were to walk behind you, I might not be able to refrain from shooting you. You remind me too much of your brother."

Sesshomaru's hair bristled.

"No one is going to kill Inuyasha", he said, "unless I do it myself." They walked on for some while, and had just passed a place where the road was very rough, being strewn with rocks that had washed down the side of a neighboring hill, when Sesshomaru stopped.

"What is it?"

He said nothing, but instead drew the Tenseiga, and stood as if he were looking for something. Kikyo's hand went to her arrows.

"There must be a village nearby", he said. "I thought I heard someone playing the flute."  
"Your pardon, Lord Sesshomaru, but I did not hear anything."

"Perhaps I didn't either", he said, and sheathing the sword, he started walking again. They had been walking for some time before he spoke again. "It's really none of my concern", he began.

Kikyo sighed, then took a deep breath, as she braced herself for the inevitable line of questioning about what had happened between her and Inuyasha.

"What happened to your shoes?"

Kikyo blinked, letting his words register, then gave Sesshomaru a questioning look, before answering:

"I lost them in a puddle of Naraku's poisonous miasma."

"You should be careful. I have heard that servants of Naraku were seen not long ago, not far from this place. If he found you, you might do much worse than lose your shoes."

"I do not fear Naraku. So long as the heart of Onigumo beats within him, he will not be able to kill me. He . . . desires me . . . too much."

Sesshomaru smirked.

"It would seem your charms only work on half-breeds."

Kikyo shot him an arrow from her quiver of deadly looks. Then she relaxed, and made a smirk of her own.

"I . . . have no charms . . ."


	2. Chapter 2

_**Chapter 2**_

"Perhaps you should make a fire", Sesshomaru said. "Humans are very susceptible to the cold."

Kikyo stood looking at the clearing they had chosen to stop at for the evening. They had traveled past sunset, almost into the night. The last light of dusk was fading when they had come to this spot, and decided they would not go any further until the morning.

"Even when I was still alive, I never was all that human", Kikyo said, adjusting the knot that held back her hair. "And there is no fire that could possibly warm me now."

"Suit yourself."

Sesshomaru settled himself down under a tree. Normally, he did not care about traveling after dark, and would have kept on walking, but they were getting close to the place where the reports of the mysterious demon had come from, and he wanted to take a little rest. He drew his other sword, the Tokijin, out from his sash, and examined it. The sword his father left him, the Tenseiga, which had been forged from his father's own fang, had mysterious powers, but it would only cut in the netherworld. For dispatching this world's own, more mundane enemies, he carried the Tokijin.

Now the Tokijin was not like the Tenseiga. Instead of the Tenseiga's gently curving, katana shape, the Tokijin's blade was straight, like swords from the mainland, and it flared out, growing wider near the tip. It was very large, with a hilt that was meant for two hands, though Sesshomaru used it with only one, for he'd lost his other hand in a battle long ago. And what's more, the Tokijin was cursed. Sesshomaru had commissioned the sword himself, from the smith Kaijinbo. It had been made from the teeth of an evil demon, and that same malevolence had passed on to the sword that had been forged from them. While he worked on it, the power overcame Kaijinbo, and possessed him -- though truth be told, Kaijinbo was an evil creature already. In the end, the sword killed him, and its lingering aura threatened to possess anyone who held it. But Sesshomaru was too strong to be controlled, and he bent the sword to his will.

Sesshomaru examined the Tokijin keenly. He expected it to see battle by nightfall tomorrow. Then he laid it on the ground beside him, where it would be within easy reach. The Tenseiga he kept in his belt. Though he berated the sword as worthless, it had many wonderful properties. Once, it had saved his life. For in addition to letting one see into the netherworld, the Tenseiga would not allow it's wearer to perish. Instead, if it's bearer's life were in danger, the sword would magically transport him away. It had done this once, when Sesshomaru had been gravely wounded. And if he were attacked in the middle of the night, it would save him again. Sesshomaru drew the Tenseiga a little forward, across his body, so that he could rest more comfortably.

Kikyo made no sign of any kind of preparations for taking sleep. Instead she just stood there with her back to him, looking at a ruined castle on a hilltop in the distance. The last thing he saw before he closed his eyes was her, standing there, the long sleeves of her kimono, the folds of her hakama, and the long band of black hair that hung down her back all fluttering in the wind as the cooling night air sank down the foothills of the mountain. Then he closed his eyes, and went to sleep.

When he opened them again, to see the source of the snapping sound that had disturbed him, there was a fire crackling in the midst of the clearing, with a neat bundle of gathered wood piled beside it. Looking around, he could see nothing the matter, so he took his hand off of the Tokijin, and settled back against the tree. The fire was small, giving only enough light to illuminate the tiny clearing amid the trees, and that but dimly. But by its light Sesshomaru could see, on the other side of the blaze, the Lady Kikyo sitting with her back against a tree. One of her hands was on her bow, which lay beside her; the other rested on her quiver. Her hair was down, loose, and draped on either side of her shoulders. She had a sunken appearance to her, and to his eye, she looked the same as the collapsed fortress in the distance, whose towers had long ago fallen, and its walls caved in. But it was still majestic, even in ruin.

Kikyo's chin had dropped down inside the collar of her outer kimono, and he looked to make sure that she was still alive, and had not been killed by some assassin in the dark who was waiting for him to fall back asleep before killing him, too. He strained in the dim firelight, until he could see that her breast rose and fell. She was breathing. He watched her as the light slowly crept down her face, then further still, as her white kimono turned to blue in the darkness. The fire dwindled, then settled to coals, and a chill so sudden and so deep came into the clearing it seemed to be alive, some wild thing that had been lurking out amid the trees, waiting for it's moment to strike. Sesshomaru thought to himself for a moment, then leaned forward, and put several pieces from the pile onto the coals, jostling them for a moment, until they caught. There was a little smoke, then a crackle, and the light went up again. Lady Kikyo's kimono went from blue to white again. The nails of her pale fingers upon her bow shimmered like pearls strewn amid the leaves. Sesshomaru looked at her for a moment longer, then settled again against the tree, and went back to sleep.

When Kikyo awoke the next morning, the tiny fire was still burning. It's bed of coals had grown, and the pile of wood beside it was gone. Sesshomaru was on the other side of the clearing, carefully examining his swords.

"What do you know about this demon", he asked, without looking at her.

"I do not know much, but what I have heard is troubling. His name is Yamahiko."

Sesshomaru made a disdainful face.

"I have never heard of him."

"He was sealed away long ago. Perhaps before you were even born."

Sesshomaru scoffed. Kikyo went on.

"According to the story, Yamahiko wasn't originally a demon. He was a human, a noble prince who guarded a pass in the mountains. His kingdom was very prosperous, until one day, in one of the mines, a door was discovered that led to the netherworld. There are different versions of the story. Some accounts say the villagers dug too far into the mountain, and made the door themselves. Others say the gate was already there, and the villagers stumbled onto it accidentally. Whatever the truth may be, somehow, it was opened, and all manner of demons and ghosts let loose into the world.

'It took a great battle before the doorway was sealed again. Afterwards, Yamahiko and his sons became the guardians, not only of the mountain pass, but of the passage to the netherworld as well. It was a terrible burden upon his kingdom, for in addition to all of the evil spirits that had come through the gate before it closed, all manner of humans and monsters sought the door for their own ends. When the prince died, he had his tomb made inside the mountain. Even in death, he would guard the door from the other side, to make sure that it never opened again."

"That sounds like the kind of silly story that human women tell their human children to scare them in the night", was all Sesshomaru had to say.

"After the prince died, one of his sons ruled in his place. When he died, he too was buried under the mountain, in the tomb along with his father, and his own son ruled after him. This went on for generations. It was the only time the door under the mountain was allowed to be opened -- to bury one of the Yamahiko clan. Eventually, the line died out, and no one was left to guard the mountain.

'To tell you the truth, I reacted much the same as you did -- even the monks and priests who keep such tales doubted there was any truth to the old story. But sadly, we were wrong. A short while ago, something started calling from under the mountain -- from the other side of the door. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but it seems the passage was at least partly opened, and a terrible demon emerged, and has been terrorizing the village at night. None of the holy men have been able to deal with him. That's why I'm going to Yamamura, to deal with him myself.

When she had finished, the two of them remained standing there. All the forest had grown still around them, holding its breath. Even Kikyo's hair, which usually caught any passing breeze, hung motionless. It almost seemed to float in the air. There was an impossible stillness about her, and a very deep sadness. Sesshomaru turned to look at the ruined castle in the distance, as if the story had been of no interest to him.

"I told you", he said, "You aren't going to be the one to deal with this demon. I will kill him myself." And then he turned, and walked out of the clearing, back to the path that led to the village.


	3. Chapter 3

_Chapter 3_

When they had stopped to rest the night before, it had seemed that they were very close to Yamamura, and would surely reach the village that next morning. But there is something deceptive about traveling near mountains. The morning wore away, noon came and went, then the afternoon passed as well, but still the path went on. And all the while, great dark clouds came up, and then it began to rain. It was not until well into that evening that they arrived at the little town, beneath a steady drizzle. Sesshomaru ignored the rain, as if little things like the weather were beneath his consideration. Kikyo paid it only slightly more attention.

"It's a good thing the witch fired me long enough in her oven", was all she said, "otherwise, all my dirt would wash away."

She was talking about Urasue, the evil sorceress who had desecrated her grave. She had taken Kikyo's ashes, and mixing them together in a hideous recipe that included bits of bone and graveyard soil -- along with who knows what else -- she made a new body to look just like Kikyo's old one. This she fired in a magic oven, until the vessel that came out looked just like the Lady Kikyo in every regard: the way she looked, the sound of her voice, everything was exactly the same as before. The only difference was that her new body had no warmth.

Urasue had hoped to use her new creation as a puppet that would do her bidding. In life, Kikyo had been renowned for her powers as a priestess. The witch rightly guessed that such great power would not simply disappear -- even in the grave. But there were other things that got mixed in with the soil and bones. Memories lingered among the ashes. And an iron will.

There wasn't much to the town, just a collection of small houses, a few shops, and one inn at the center. As if the rain weren't enough, to complete the dreary atmosphere, there was a funeral going on, in what had once been a little cemetery on the edge of town. Tragically, in the last few weeks and days, it had suddenly got much larger. Kikyo and Sesshomaru met the procession on the road. As it was passing, amid the sounds of wailing and crying, a gust of wind came up, and tore off part of the white shroud that covered the body, so that they could see that it had belonged to a young woman. She could not have been more than sixteen or seventeen years old. Her skin was ghastly white, but her hair was long and dark, and still quite beautiful. Kikyo nodded to herself. Sesshomaru seemed unmoved.

As they walked down the street, the only one in the town, people stood in the doorways of their houses looking at them in spite of the rain. It was not every day that one could see a youkai and a priestess walking down the road together. It was to the inn they went, and Sesshomaru would have gone in immediately, had Kikyo not stopped him.

"Better to let me talk to them", she said. "They will be less afraid of me, and we will get better information."

"Then you go in first", he said, and held the reed curtain across the door open for her.

"It is the priestess!", more or less everyone in the room said when Kikyo walked in, after which the conversations went off in several different directions, the most prominent ones being some variation of, "Surely she well help us!", or "What took her so long?", or else, "I thought all priestesses were old women. I didn't know she'd be so --oof!", "Be quiet!" The conversations stopped altogether when Sesshomaru walked in, and this time, when they started up, they were on the order of, "Who is THAT?" "Why would a priestess be traveling with a demon?" "He can't be evil; he's traveling with a priestess", and "Of course he's not! No one could be all bad and still be so GOOD looking!" Then Sesshomaru cast his icy stare around the room, into every nook and corner, and the conversations died again, only this time, they did not restart.

"My lady", a kindly looking old man with white hair said, breaking the awkward silence, "You have traveled a long way to see us. I am afraid we have little to offer you, but we have rice, and perhaps some hot sake would help allay the cold."

"I don't require your food", Sesshomaru said before Kikyo could say anything.

Kikyo clasped her hands, and bowed very low.

"What my companion means", she said, in very conciliatory tones, "Is that we did not come here to take advantage of your hospitality. And we have no money with which to pay you, so we will refrain from eating your food, or drinking your sake. We came here only to help." And she bowed again, much to the elder's protests.

"My lady, it is we who should pay you. You have come all this way. Please, at least let us offer you a warm meal. Let us pay you as best we can for your trouble."

"Thank you, but it is better if I abstain. I wish to purify myself, to keep my powers at their strongest."

The old man bowed.

"As you wish. If your friend would like anything, he need only ask. Or he may help himself, as he likes."

Sesshomaru stayed where he was, holding his head aloof. If Jaken were there, he most likely would have said, "The great lord Sesshomaru has no need to ask anyone for ANYTHING!" But Jaken was not there. However, several girls from the village were, and one of them could be heard whispering to her friends, "Look, she can't eat anything because she has to fast to maintain her power, so he won't eat, either. How sweet! He's not only handsome, he's a gentleman too!" If Sesshomaru heard them, he did not pay them any attention.

Kikyo looked around the inn for a few minutes, then placed her bow and quiver in an out of the way corner where she could keep an eye on them easily. She was about to turn around when she heard a very unfriendly voice say,

"I don't suppose your kind requires _human_ food."

The voice belonged to a monk. She could tell by the dark robes that marked his order. One would have thought that he would be addressing such a remark to Sesshomaru, but he was looking right at Kikyo. His words were meant for her.

"How strange", Kikyo said. "I had heard that all the holy men of this village had perished fighting the demon. How is it that you are not with them?"

The monk scowled.

"I'm not from this village."

Kikyo narrowed her eyes.

"I came from the next valley over. I'm here to destroy the demon."

"Then it would appear we are on the same side."

"Not likely. I've never heard of a priestess traveling with a demon before. I cannot imagine what unlikely circumstances would bring the two together. But TWO demons, traveling together, now that I can imagine . . ."

"You imagine much," Kikyo said good naturedly, and turned away from him to go and sit beside the hearth. She chose a spot next to the town elder, and pretended to be warming herself by the fire. "Father, tell me, how are you coping with the recent attack?"

"It has been very hard for us. Many have perished already. Just this afternoon we buried a young girl, naught but seventeen years old. It is hard enough to lose the old, but for the young to die -- she was so beautiful, and very kind and industrious, too. An unusual combination in these times. She'd have made a good wife to someone one day. It is too terrible."

"My heart . . .goes out to her . . ."

Just then, someone came and put a rack of meat over the fire. When it sizzled, Kikyo gasped, and recoiled in horror.

"My lady!"

"The smell . . .", was all Kikyo could say, and she put her hand to her chest and gagged.

"You fool! Get that out of here! I'm sorry my lady -- what were you thinking, roasting that filth in front of her!"

"No, no", she said between coughs, "Don't punish him. I take no offense at what anyone else eats. It's just, I cannot abide the smell of burning flesh . . ."

"I am terribly sorry, my lady. Are you all right?"

"I'll be fine."

The elder put his hand out to steady her.

"Why you're freezing cold! And your kimono is soaked through. You will be ill! Let us get you a room, and some dry things."

"Thank you."

While the elder took Kikyo to find a room, Sesshomaru remained in the main hall. The inn was a small building, but well constructed, with wooden floors in the common room and the two hallways that led to the rooms for the guests. Though humble, everything was kept very clean, and in perfect order. Finding nothing of interest, Sesshomaru stepped out onto the porch, where the rain was no longer even a drizzle, but had ceased altogether. He sniffed the air, but could smell nothing in it but the now far away storm. There were no signs of any kind of trouble, at least, not in this world, so he drew the Tenseiga, to see what he could see in the next, but there was nothing stirring there, either, so he returned it to its sheath, and turned and went in.

He had just let the door flap down behind him when he caught sight of a monk, the same one who had accosted Kikyo, glaring at him. Sesshomaru glared back. The monk did not waver. So he laid his hand on the Tokijin. At that, the monk looked away.

"Hmpfh!", Sesshomaru said to himself. "A coward." It occurred to him that a real monk would have more of a spiritual presence, and he wondered if the Tenseiga would have any effect on such a person.

"Pay no attention to him", the elder said, coming back down the hall. "He came here several days ago, saying he was going to rid us of the demon, but he hasn't done anything yet but eat our food and drink our wine. I've seen good men do wicked things, and wicked men do good things. I've seen so many winters that my hair has turned white -- what is it to me if your hair is white also?"

"Where is the Lady Kikyo?"

"She's in a room near the end of the hall. Your room is beside hers -- it's the last door on the left. Here, I will show you."

"You need not bother. I will find it myself."

"As you wish, then. I am old, and it is late, so I will take my leave."

Sesshomaru nodded, and watched him go. Then he made his way down the hall. He had just drawn even with the second to last door on the left, when it opened.

"Lord Sesshomaru."

The two panels slid to either side. Between them stood the Lady Kikyo. She was wearing a quilted gray sleeping kimono. Her wet clothes were hanging on a rack in the room behind her. A beautiful red kimono decorated with flowers and leaves was spread out on the wall.

"I should want to pursue Yamahiko in the morning, as early as possible", he said. Kikyo nodded in agreement.

"We shall go before dawn."

"Then good evening, Lady Kikyo."

Kikyo slid the panels shut. Sesshomaru went to his own room. But he did not sleep. There was something in the way Kikyo had greeted him. Something too deliberate.

"She wanted me to see her", he thought to himself. "But what was her purpose?" Sesshomaru was quite familiar with the advances of human women, even if he did reject them. He had no time for such things. But that was not Kikyo's purpose. "If she had wanted to seduce me, she'd have worn the red kimono that hung on the wall behind her." But instead she had worn a gray sleeping kimono, which was very old, and worn, to the point of being a bit lumpy looking. And she'd had it drawn up very close around her neck, in complete modesty.

"Never the less", he thought, "She wanted me to see her that way, dressed for bed. She wanted me to think she was going to sleep. Which means she isn't going to sleep. She's going out after the demon herself . . ."


	4. Chapter 4

_Chapter 4 _

"She's going out after the demon herself . . ." Sesshomaru thought.

Kikyo had just finished changing back into her old kimono and gone out the door to her room as he thought it. She was already down the hall and into the main room when he opened his door. By the time he got to the porch, she was well down the path. He could just see the glow of her white kimono in the distance when he got there. But she was not going towards the mountain. She was headed away from the village, out towards the forest.

It was easy to follow her in the moonlight. There was still a heavy mist in the air from the rain, and it gave everything around a painted effect, making it all seem more than real, if that were possible. The path wove right, then left. Sesshomaru had to be careful to step quietly, because the same glow that made it so easy for him to follow her would also make it very easy for her to catch sight of him, should she turn around. But Kikyo was intent on something else.

Up ahead was what had once been a tiny cemetery. Tragically, in the last few weeks it had gotten much larger. The path curved sharply to go around it, but Kikyo's feet made a straight line as she walked out among the graves. The older burials were closer to the road. She walked past them, the sweep of her robe, with its huge sleeves, both exaggerating and concealing her movements by turns. One moment she seemed to hover as she surveyed the various markers, then she would flit like a ghost amid the tombs. She made her way to the back, to the section with the freshest graves.

The rain had brought up a heavy scent of soil, and as some of the burials were a few weeks old now, there tickled in with it a hint of putrefaction. Kikyo stopped here, and Sesshomaru watched her, to see what she would do. For a moment she stood looking at the ground sadly. But it was a strange sort of sadness, not the grief in mourning someone that one knew, or the less tangible heaviness of contemplating life cut short. It was no normal grief at all, such as the living feel for the dead. This was the grief of the dead for the dead. In the moonlight, her white skin was both lovely -- and hideous.

Kikyo held out her arm, and the sleeve of her kimono hung open. It billowed, but not in the breeze, for there was no breeze. Then a blue light could be seen, like the moon showing through a faint mist, but the moon was not behind Kikyo, it was overhead, and already going down in the other half of the sky. Sesshomaru watched to see what this light could be. As he watched, there came from the folds of her sleeve a blue shape, with the body of a snake, but the head of a dragon. Effortlessly it flowed out, without making any kind of sound, and began to wind its way among the tombs. It flowed over one stone, wrapped around another: it was searching for something. When it found the grave of the young woman whose funeral procession they had witnessed on their way into town it stopped, then reared up before diving beneath the soil.

Kikyo lowered her arm. A moment later, the spectral serpent emerged from the ground, carrying beneath it a glowing blue light. It flowed up from the grave, and back to Kikyo, who raised her other arm. The blue light disappeared into her other sleeve, where it could be seen moving until it stopped in the middle of her chest, where her heart would have been. Kikyo lurched backwards, not standing so much as suspended in the air while the light grew in intensity until it was almost blinding. Then she pitched forward, and it began to fade.

She hung there like that for several moments. When she moved to lift her head, her arms and shoulders remained motionless. It was as if her body was a marionette, and it was only through sheer force of will that her spirit was able to make it move, to pull its strings, to make it seem to go on living. Even her face had a kind of clumsiness to it. Her eyes half rolled, barely able to focus. Her hair, so long and pretty, that should have been her pride as a woman, hung in a bedraggled mess. Her eyes met Sesshomaru's, and she began to laugh at the thought of him seeing her like this.

"Now he knows what I really am", she thought to herself. "How wretched and revolting I must be."

But Sesshomaru did not look revolted. And he did not laugh.

"DEVIL!"

Kikyo and Sesshomaru turned to see to whom the voice belonged.

"Witch! Harlot! Fiend! How dare you defile this place, and steal the souls of the young women of this village! I only call you devil because I know no worse word!"

It was the monk from the inn. Sesshomaru started to move, but Kikyo shot out her hand to stop him. She took one tottering step forward, then another, before she could stand up again.

"You fool! Do you think that I am going to live forever!? This body is crudely made, and my soul is but loosely bound to it -- what is it to you if the souls of these poor girls sojourn with me for a season, until I too perish, and we all cross over together? Who better to console them than I -- a maiden whose life was also cut short? Who better knows their sorrows, of lives unlived, of dreams unfulfilled, because they were also my own? Go away, monk! Your muttering and chanting aren't wanted here!"

As she spoke, the fire in which her other body had burned seemed to leap up in her eyes. The monk stumbled backwards, over one of the stones, then jumping up, turned, and fled.

"Hmpfh!" Kikyo said, turning her back to him. Sesshomaru looked at her as calmly as ever. A long, awkward moment passed. Kikyo reached up and loosed the ribbon from her hair so she could fix her ponytail, then retied it. Sesshomaru turned half way around, so that he stood in profile.

"Do you mean to go after the demon tonight?", he asked her.

"No. Better to wait until morning."

A lazy breeze moved among the graves, swatting at Kikyo's hair, and the billows of Sesshomaru's sleeves.

"Then we should return to the inn", he said. Then he turned, and walked away.

"Hmpfh", Kikyo said again, only this time without her earlier indignation. Then she set off after him.

"We should be careful", she said as they approached the inn. "We don't know what sort of trouble that monk might have set up for us.

Sesshomaru looked unconcerned. He walked right up to the edge of the inn's wooden porch, and looked to either side, to see if there were any unpleasant surprises. But nothing happened. Kikyo went on ahead of him. She had almost made it to the door when she let out a small gasp.

"Footprints!"

The ground was still quite wet from all the rain, and very muddy. In her haste to get back unseen, she had forgotten about her own lack of shoes, and had left a muddy track of cemetery soil right across the porch.

"How could I have been so careless?", she said, and she began to frantically look around beside the door. "They must have a rag or a bucket or something so I --"

Just then the glowing ball of light from the night watchman's lantern loomed around the corner, like the moon coming out from behind a cloud. It began to move down the street.

"Oh no, he'll see us", she whispered, "What are we going to -- oofh!"

In her haste to turn around, she had run right into Sesshomaru. The light from the lamp grew larger, as it continued towards them. Without another moment or another word, he bent and picked Kikyo up, and carried her through the door.

He brought her through the main room, down the hall, to the end of the hall. He did not set her down until he was inside the door to her room. The lantern passed by the front of the inn without stopping.

"Thank you, I -- I was very foolish, I --"

But Sesshomaru turned and walked away. A moment later he came back, and handed Kikyo a damp cloth. Neither of them said anything while she hurriedly wiped her feet, and then the place where she had been standing. Then Sesshomaru took the cloth from her, and still without a word, went down the hallway. He looked out the door, down the street to where he could see the orb of the watchman's light swaying lazily as it moved away from him, and he knew that it's bearer was lax in his duty, and had not seen them. He watched the light grow smaller and smaller. When it was quite far away, Sesshomaru went out onto the porch, and carefully wiped each one of Kikyo's footprints away.

Kikyo waited for some minutes in her room, before she drew the two panels of her door shut. She did not see him again until morning.


	5. Chapter 5

_Chapter 5_

"That monk was nowhere to be found this morning", the village elder said to Sesshomaru as he and Kikyo were standing in the hall, making ready to depart. He chuckled as he went on, "I suppose that look you gave him yesterday must have been enough to scare him off."

Sesshomaru glanced at Kikyo. Kikyo looked the other way.

"I doubt it was me that he was afraid of", Sesshomaru said.

"Oh, don't apologize for it. I had meant to shoo him off myself. You just saved me the trouble."

"I was not --"

"He did not mean to offend anyone", Kikyo cut him off.

"Ah, Lady Kikyo. Do you mean to set out after the demon immediately, then?"

"Yes. We shall depart at once."

"Excellent. I can't tell you how much this means to us."

"Really, you don't need to thank us", Kikyo said very kindly, then turned to look at Sesshomaru, who was glaring at her. So she glared right back. If the elder noticed, he did not say anything about it. Instead, he just smiled. There were several people at the inn already, who had gathered to see them out. They watched them with great trepidation, as Kikyo and Sesshomaru began their way down the path that led behind the town, away from the graveyard, and toward the mountain.

"How can you smile like that?", someone asked him, as he stood watching them. "With all that we have been through -- if they fail, we are doomed."

"I am old", he answered, "and have seen many troubles. Before the demon, there was the landslide that buried the whole northern end of the village. And before that, there was the war with the neighboring provinces -- half the young men in this village were killed in that mess . . . And before the war or the landslide or the demon, there was the famine, when the rice crop failed for two years in a row. Troubles always come. And then, after a time, the answer comes after them. Now I have seen the answer to the trouble of this time, so I am at peace. That, and --", he shrugged, and said again, "I am old. I can hope that I won't be here the next time trouble visits our village. But they . . ." he said, looking down the path after Sesshomaru and Kikyo, "They are young . . ."

The base of the mountain was wreathed with fog when Sesshomaru and Kikyo set out. There was light in the sky, though the sun was not yet visible. The evening wind that came down off the sides of the mountain had stopped blowing, but there was not yet enough light or heat for the air to begin to climb its way up to the top again. Instead, everything hung suspended -- their clothes, their hair, even time itself seemed to dwell in a place that was neither day nor night, but dwelt between the two, and did not fully belong to either. Through the fog they could see the band of trees that marked the farthest edge of civilization. Beyond lay wilderness. At one time they had been well kept, as neatly manicured as a nobleman's fingernails, but now they had fallen into an unruly condition, very rough, with chunks missing here and there and extra, untrained growth in other places. The villagers used to tell their children that the spaces between the limbs of the trees were made by the slashes of the swords of the tengu, the goblins who lived on the mountain. The tale was meant to keep them from wandering from home at night. But now there was no need for frightenning stories to keep them indoors. The demon, and the fast filling graveyard were enough for that.

The mountain went up for some ways, and then came crashing down, into a valley. It was very abrupt. You could not see it from the town because of the way the trees obscured the view when one was looking uphill and from a distance. But it was an eerie place, when you came to it, and it was easy to see how the villagers might imagine that there were monsters there, or that the whole valley had been made by the slash of some giant's sword. The path crested the hill, then went down, sharply down, and straight, without any kind of switching back to either side to lessen the steepness of the grade. At its bottom lay the mouth of the tomb.

Kikyo and Sesshomaru had to lean so far back that they were walking almost on their heels, until they were only barely standing up. Loose gravel slid and gave way here and there, but they made it to the bottom without incident. It was a lonely place. Nothing grew in the valley floor, due to an abundance of red clay that had settled there. It felt very appropriate for a tomb. A path ran along the bottom of the valley, up against the face of the mountain where it rose again. In its middle was a doorway carved out of the rock.

"There," Kikyo said. Sesshomaru nodded. Pieces of an old stone door were carelessly piled to one side. Inside was a long hall, skillfully carved but unadorned, that ran back into the mountain, until it reached another door, made of bronze. The door was partly open.

"What madness could have convinced the villagers to come to such a place?" Kikyo thought to herself, and she began to wonder if the townspeople really had brought this on themselves, or if they had been lured here by something sleeping inside the grave. Even the most heartless wretch would have thought twice about robbing such a place, if not out of propriety, then at least out of fear. The bronze door at the far end of the hall must have been quite beautiful when it was newly cast and polished, but it had long since corroded to a dismal green color that seemed to speak of rot and death. The lengths of the walls were lined with lamps.

They proceeded slowly. When Kikyo drew even with the first pair of lamps, fire leapt up in them, burning of its own accord, and casting an eerie green light. Her skin was so pale that when the light shone on her, it took on a greenish hue. She paused for a moment to take out an arrow, and fit it to the string of her bow. Sesshomaru drew the Tokijin. They waited to see if something would spring out at them, but nothing did. Kikyo looked around for any kind of traps or pitfalls, but there were no hidden panels or arrow slits in the walls, and no trip lines on the floor, so she proceeded. As she went, the lamps continued to light beside her.

"Whatever it is", she said calmly, "It knows we're here."

Sesshomaru nodded again.

"At least it has a sense of courtesy."

When they came to the door, Kikyo stepped sideways to get through it, and found herself in a large room, lit by several large lamps that were already burning. The lamps were on stands spread around them, and in their light Kikyo could see that the walls were lined with swords, bows, spears, and other pole weapons of strange shape and dubious classification. In the middle of the room was a large stone box. It's lid was slid halfway open to reveal a skeleton inside, lying draped in what had once been armor, but the cords had long since rotted away, leaving the bones lying amid a pile of metal plates and scales. The dome of the helmet, being set with rivets instead of laces, still held its shape as it sat upon the skull, but the elaborate drape that protected the sides of the head and neck had fallen apart, making a wreath about the shoulders like a kind of devil's halo. Beside the body lay a sword, a very old sword; its blade was straight, though its hilt followed a Japanese pattern, distinct from swords on the mainland.

Sesshomaru regarded the sword with interest. It had once been a fine blade, but it could not rival either of the swords he already carried. "So I'm still stuck with the dull, useless Tenseiga after all", he thought to himself.

There was a doorway in the back wall. Apart from the door through which they had come, it was the only opening in the room. Kikyo looked at it, and took a deep breath. It was out of habit, of course. She didn't actually need to breathe anymore.

"The gate must be through there", she said.

Sesshomaru paid it no mind, but instead continued to examine the various artifacts along the walls of the room. When he came near to the door, he was not alarmed, indeed, he hardly seemed to notice, when the figure of young man stepped out.

"Who DARES defile the tomb of the great mountain prince, Yamahiko?"


	6. Chapter 6

_Chapter 6_

"Who DARES defile the tomb of the great mountain prince, Yamahiko?" the ghostly figure demanded.

He was dressed in a very fine armor, of heavily lacquered scales that were laced with green laces. It was made after a very old pattern, like a box with three sides. The fourth side, under his right arm, was open, with a single, solid plate tied beneath it to cover the gap. On his left he wore a sword with a straight blade, hung with its edge facing down.

Sesshomaru regarded him with only mild interest.

"You aren't Yamahiko," Kikyo said calmly, flexing her bow. "Yamahiko is here-this is his coffin. You're just a foul thing that steals his shape and defiles his memory!"

The ghost looked at her for a moment, then smiled.

"Some might say the same thing about you", he chuckled, leaning closer to her. "I've never been insulted by a clay pot before. Some vessels are made to honor, like the golden cup that sits on a prince's table. But others - like you - are for more shameful purposes, like the pot that sits by the bed at night, and holds all of the-"

"Why you -", Kikyo shouted, straining her bow until it nearly broke. Sesshomaru stepped in front of her.

"I told you", he said, "I'm going to kill him."

"Be careful. He's more dangerous than he looks."

"You, kill me? Those are brave words for someone who likes to play with little clay dolls. I'm going to enjoy breaking your woman in front of you."

"I am -"

"She is -"

"NOT"

"his -"

"my -"

"WOMAN!"

Kikyo and Sesshomaru shouted in unison. There was an awkward pause. Even the ghost did not say anything for a moment.

"Oh - well, how boring then. In that case, you can just die!" And with a wave of his arm, he sent a ball of green flame in Sesshomaru's direction. Sesshomaru held up his arm, letting the blast hit him without making any effort to move out of the way.

"I've come a long way", he said, as the green fire crackled all around him, "And I'm going to be very disappointed if that's the best you can do!"

And with that, he sent the green flame back towards its owner with such force that the figure who called itself Yamahiko had to catch it with both hands. It pushed him back, and for a moment it seemed he would be overcome, but with great effort, he managed to tear his hands apart, at which point the green fireball dissipated in a ripple that spread out across the room, making each of the lamps flicker as it passed.

"Impressive", the ghost said with a wicked smile, "but you'll have to do better than that."

"I intend to", Sesshomaru answered, and taking the Tokijin, he leapt at Yamahiko, and struck him right through the middle. But the blade passed through him as though he wasn't even there.

"Ha!", he laughed, as Sesshomaru made several more slashes, in case any other part of him might prove more vulnerable, "your weapon cannot hurt me. What now? How can you possibly defeat me when your sword doesn't even cut?"

But Sesshomaru smiled - that deadly smile, that women loved, and Jaken feared so much. He jammed the Tokijin into the ground close by, where it would be within easy reach if he wanted it, and then, putting his hand to his sash, he drew out the Tenseiga. As the old blade came out of its sheath, the room, and all that was in it, grew faint. But Yamahiko seemed to become more solid, more real.

On seeing the sword, the ghost's eyes lit up.

"Interesting. Killing you is going to be more fun than slaughtering those helpess villagers."

Sesshomaru was done with formalities.

"Enough", he said, bringing the Tenseiga up over his head, and then crashing down, where it hung suspended in the air, a foot away from Yamahiko's brow. In the blue light, Kikyo could just make out the dim outline of a sphere all around him.

"A barrier!"

The ghost looked over at her, then back to Sesshomaru.

"If you give up now, I'll kill you first, so that you won't have to hear the girl screaming."

"You talk a great deal - I'm beginning to think that's all you can do!"

"Impudent dog!", Yamahiko snarled, and seizing a spear off of the wall, made a lunge at him. But in his haste, he reached past the protection of the barrier.

Sesshomaru avoided the point of the spear easily, and turning the the side, brought the blade of the Tenseiga down upon the ghost's arm, shearing it off midway between the elbow and the wrist.

"AHHHH!", it screamed.

Sesshomaru examined his sword calmly.

"So it does work . . ."

"You bastard!" Yamahiko shouted, after looking at the stump of his severed arm.

Sesshomaru raised an eyebrow.

"Your barrier is indeed formidable. But you can't stay in it forever. Unless, of course, you mean to hide . . ."  
"Curse you!", the ghost shouted, and drawing his own sword, he sprang at him. The air grew thick with the sound of clashing blades, as Yamahiko struck at him, first from one side, then the other. Sesshomaru never retreated, but the sheer force pushed him backwards, making his feet slide over the stone floor. All the while, he never lost his deadly smile.

"That sword -" Yamahiko said between slashes, " - with such power, one could rule the Netherworld - I must have it!"

And drawing back, he made a wild swing at the dog demon. Sesshomaru leaned back, feeling the wicked thrill of the blade passing close in front of him. When it had cleared him, he set the point of the Tenseiga against Yamahiko's throat, and lunged.

The ghost, seeing too late what Sesshomaru intended, knew he could not avoid it, so instead he turned his own sword towards Sesshomaru's chest, aiming the point at a spot just above his armor, so that if he had to die, he would take the inu youkai with him.

As they closed together, the points of their swords became lost from view, so that it was impossible to say who would win, whether one would slay the other, or if both would die in the exchange. No one will ever know, for at that moment, a purple streak came hurtling under Sesshomaru's arm, passing so close to him that it tore a hole in the sleeve of his kimono. Looking down, he saw the feathered fletching of one of Kikyo's arrows sticking out of Yamahiko's chest. The ghost loosened its grip on its sword, and sank forward onto its knees with a groan.

Sesshomaru whirled to see Kikyo standing, her one arm still outstretched, the bow turned in her hand from the force of the string. Her other hand was back beside her ear, still open from when it had released the arrow. He regarded her furiously. Kikyo looked back at him calmly.

"I told you that I was going to kill him", she said coolly, "And besides", she added with a smirk, "you were taking too long."

Sesshomaru regarded her with a look of disbelief. His face did not move, but he was so angry that a red light came into his eyes. A shiver went through his whole body, making his hair bristle, and the fur pelt on his shoulder to shake. Then he turned, and with one stroke, struck off the head of Yamahiko. Normally he was very graceful, but in his anger, the cut was less than perfect, and halfway through it caught a little in Yamahiko's neck, so that the body was cast to the side. The head hit the wall with a nauseating thump, amplified by the sound of the metal helmet, then thudded to the ground where it bounced several times before coming to a stop. Slowly, both it and the body began to disappear into the air.

He turned again to look at Kikyo. For a moment, his eyes and hers were locked.

A low rumble came from the other room.

Kikyo's eyes widened.

"The gate!"


	7. Chapter 7

_**Chapter 7**_

"The gate!", Kikyo shouted. "We can't let it open!"

In the next room they found what looked like an ancient well, with a wall built around it, and wooden planks layed over the top. These were weighted down with a pile of heavy stones, themselves secured with a mesh of crossed chains, and set at intervals with branches from an evergreen tree. Stuck to everything - the walls, the boards, the rocks, the chains - were little paper scrolls, each of which contained a prayer or blessing. Ominous blue smoke issued from beneath, rolling up in clouds on either side of the well.

Just then, there came a low, creaking groan, accompanied by a gust of wind that made the paper scrolls flutter as they stood on end. In an explosion of light, a pillar of blue flame leapt from the floor to the ceiling, where it spread out until it reached the walls, and began to come down the sides of them. And all the while, all manner of demons and foul creatures of every description began to pour from the well. They came like a mass of slithering snakes, writhing together, with wide eyes and gaping mouths, eager for freedom after their long imprisonment on the other side of the gate. There were devils, with hooves and horns, and crude mixtures of man and beast, along with other, stranger abominations, such as a giant, floating eye, and a skull that moaned as it flew past them. Others seemed to have no shape, but were only vague, looming shadows.

Kikyo loosed several arrows, sending purple streaks into the advancing onslaught. Wherever they hit, the grotesque forms they met with would break up, and disintegrate, but they were just as quickly replaced.

"There are too many of them!", she shouted, drawing another arrow, and holding it to her bow. "Hold them off! I'm going to try to seal it!" And she bent her bow and held it, focusing her concentration. The tip of the arrow began to glow.

Sesshomaru remained looking at her for a moment. He did not at all care for the imperious way she'd addressed him, and he took out his frustrations by swatting several of the strange entities nearest him. To his delight, he found them to be quite corporeal and vulnerable to his otherworldly blade.

"Tenseiga, it seems at last I have a use for you", he smiled. Never mind the fact the sword had already once saved his life. As he held the venerable old blade, he suddenly felt a pulse course through it. Looking before him, he saw a whirlwind forming out of a blue mist.

"I can see it. Just like the wind scar - I can see the vortex where the two atmospheres converge. But wait -", he thought, looking over his shoulder at the lamps in the burial chamber, with their flames burning perfectly upright, "There isn't any wind down here. The air in the tomb is stagnant - probably poisonous - there isn't even a slight breeze. Then this vortex must be the collision between boundaries, between this world and the next. I wonder . . ."

And taking up the sword, he drew the Tenseiga back. In that instant, the whole room seemed to draw back with it, and hang suspended, waiting for his hand. Casting forward, the sword let out a blinding blue streak that lit up the cavern like a bolt of lightning in a storm. The blast tore through the cloud of onrushing demons, cleaving it in two.

"It's working!", Kikyo shouted, watching the purple light creep down the arrow shaft towards her fingers. "Just a little more . . ." She took aim at the base of the well.

But then, an awful cry filled the cavern, together with a low rumble that made the floor shake, so that she nearly toppled backwards. Bits of the ceiling rained down around her, and for a moment she wondered if the whole cave would collapse, and entomb them both. Slowly, a giant horned head emerged from the well. Kikyo followed it with the point of her arrow, up - up - as the shoulders emerged, then the body. It was red, like the fires she had burned in, and carried a giant club fashioned from a tree trunk that had been wrapped in iron, and studded with spikes.

The purple light reached her fingertips. She flexed her bow.

But before she could let go of the string, Sesshomaru leapt.

"Go back to where you came from", he said, as the fur pelt of his mokomoko trailed out behind him. "There's no place in this world for something as wretched as you!"

And with a single stroke, he slashed through both the giant demon, and the pillar of blue flame, which at once was extinguished. The beast let out a miserable groan as its upper half began to fall to one side. It never made it to the floor, but instead began to break up in mid air, disinterating before their very eyes, until it was gone, leaving only its awful cry behind, still echoing eerily in the farther parts of the cavern.

The pillar of fire was gone, leaving the chamber dark except for the dim shadows cast by the torches in the next room, and the purple glow of Kikyo's arrow. By their light, they could see the well as it was before, the boards and rocks and chains still in place. The scrolls fluttered for a moment, then were still. A faint blue mist crept up from beneath. As Sesshomaru sheathed his sword, the moment the hilt of the Tenseiga came to rest against the scabbard's mouth, this, too extinguished.

Kikyo relaxed the pressure on her bow. The purple light left the arrow, and she took it from the string, and put it back in it's place. The bodies of the demons she had shot, and the hundred slain by the Tenseiga, had all vanished. In the next room, Yamahiko lay in his coffin, undisturbed. The body of the young man was missing from the hall. One of her arrows was lying in its place. Reaching down, she picked it up, and put it back in her quiver.

The only thing to prove that any of it had ever happenned at all was the hole in the sleeve of Sesshomaru's kimono. This he regarded with no small sense of displeasure. Sesshomaru looked at her. Kikyo averted her eyes. Then he turned, and walked away.

He did not speak to her on the way back. Neither of them spoke. When they came to the village, Kikyo stopped to buy herself a new pair of sandals, to replace the ones she had lost in Naraku's miasma. She paid for them with a golden oban coin. Oban were usually minted to commemorate a special occasion of some sort. They were to be given - and spent - only for very special reasons. Kikyo had the coin left from part of a payment she'd received for slaying another demon, in another village. Looking around at the depressed condition of the little town, with the ravages of the demon everywhere - in the ragged buildings, and streets, and people - she decided that spending anything in this poor little village was a good deed unto itself. And besides, she really needed a new pair of shoes.

And then they left, before anyone else could know they were there. As they walked, Kikyo thought about saying something to him, but when she looked at Sesshomaru, she could see that his hair still bristled, almost ready to stand on end, so she said nothing. They went uphill, and downhill for most of the day - for such is the way of traveling in mountains. At night, they stopped to camp in the clearing, the same one from before, with the ruined castle on the hilltop in the distance.

Kikyo looked at Sesshomaru. There was less tension in his shoulders now. His silvery white hair had finally smoothed out in the evening breeze, though parts of it were still a little out of place. She found herself thinking it could use a good combing.

"I'll make a fire", Kikyo said, and she gathered the wood, and the built the fire, and sat down beside it. She made a kind of game out of trying to warm herself. She held out her hands, and kept turning them, over and over again in front of the fire, trying her best to heat them evenly on both sides, so that they would feel warm, as if she were alive again. Finally, it grew late, and she went to bed. The last thing she saw as she laid down her head was Sesshomaru, sitting with his back against a tree. His pale face and the billows of his white kimono glowed like the moon. Then she closed her eyes, and went to sleep.

They set out early the next day. It was still quite dark when they crossed the little bridge beside the waterfall, and passed the place where Sesshomaru thought he had heard a flute some days before. They kept on walking, until they came to the place where their paths had met, where one road led back to the place where Rin and Jaken were camped, waiting, while the other lead out of the forest, over a small plain, toward the village where Kikyo had first set out.

The grey light of morning moved in among the trees. Kikyo rested her back against one of them; Sesshomaru remained standing, motionless, his side turned towards her. He did not look at her. They remained like that for a long while, with neither of them saying anything. When they did speak, it was Sesshomaru who spoke first.

"I told you" he said calmly, "That I was going to be the one to kill him."

Kikyo turned her back to him.

"I could have adjusted my aim", she said, "Just a little bit, and I would have killed two youkai, instead of just one. Perhaps it would have been a better use of my arrow."

Her voice was very bitter.

"My brother is a fool . . ." Sesshomaru growled.

"Hmpfh!" Kikyo sighed, turning the rest of her back to him, as if in disgust, but really it was because she did not want him to see the pained look in her face.

"I know", she said, "He takes up with humans - but his mother was human, so what did you expect? I've heard all this before . . ."

"I suppose he is better off this way, with that other girl - the one with the strange green and white clothing -"

Kikyo winced, and her shoulders rose up.

" He doesn't deserve you . . . And besides- he'd never be able to handle you. You're far too - formidable . . . Even if you are a human."

Kikyo froze. It took her a moment, to think about what he had said. All the while, as they were standing there, their hair, and the sleeves of their kimono, and the folds of their hakama were caught in the same breeze. Kikyo took a deep breath. If Sesshomaru heard her sniffle, he did not say anything about it. When she was able to move again, she straightened her back, then turned slightly, and looked at him over her shoulder.

"I told you", she said with a smile - a beautiful, deadly smile, "I never was much good at being human."

And then she turned, and walked away.

Sesshomaru remained looking after her. There was something about the manner of her walk - it might have been the way her white, bell shaped sleeves of her kimono seemed to float along side her. Or perhaps it was the sweep of her hair, where it hung down behind her in a loose ponytail, gathering in at the base of her neck before trailing down her back. Or maybe it was the shifting motion of the pleated folds of her red hakama pants. Sesshomaru couldn't say exactly, but whatever it was, it drew his attention.

When she was a little ways off, she stopped, and looked back over her shoulder at him again. But he did not turn away, or make any attempt to disguise the fact that he was looking at her. So she smiled again, a bit smugly, then turned and began to walk again.

After she had gone awhile, she stopped and turned again. When she saw that he was still looking, she smiled once more, then continued on her way. She did not stop or turn around again. Sesshomaru watched her grow small in the distance, until he could no longer see the separation between her white kimono top and her red hakama pants, or the switching of her ponytail from side to side, or the shifting of her gait. He turned halfway round, and paused for a moment.

And then he walked away.

"Where have you been, Lord Sesshomaru?"

"Nowhere", Sesshomaru answered, in that tone of voice that Rin liked so much. He set a small bundle on the ground, then drew out the Tenseiga, his father's old sword, and examined the blade.

Rin looked at the bundle curiously, but Sesshomaru paid it no attention, as if he had already forgotten about it. Carefully, she crept over to the mysterious package, and tugged at one end of the string that held it closed.

"Hey!" Jaken shouted, "No one ever said that was for you!"

Rin reached into the folded cloth, and found an orange and white ribbon that matched her kimono perfectly.

"Thank you, Lord Sesshomaru!" she exclaimed, then flipped her hair forward and tied it up on top of her head, in imitation of what she imagined the hair of the noble ladies at court would look like.

"Stop that! You're being silly!"

"Master Jaken", Rin said, straightening her back and speaking with a very regal tone of voice, "You must not address the Great Lady Rin-hime that way -" She held her serious expression for as long as she could, which was not very long, before she burst out laughing.

"Oh! I don't have to put up with this off of the likes of you! Lord Sesshomaru! Lord Sesshomaru -"

But Sesshomaru was sitting underneath the tree, looking the other way. He was looking in the direction he had come from when he returned that morning. It was the same direction in which he had last seen the Lady Kikyo.

"What is it, Lord Sesshomaru?", Rin asked carefully.

Sesshomaru kept looking in the same direction for a few moments more, then turned to face the other way.

"It's . . . nothing . . ."

The End


End file.
